Tag Archives: Working Smarter

The mind is a powerful tool, and a key to success. Visualizing success and achievement of a goal actually plays a huge role in realizing that dream.

Believe it or not, your mind experiences difficultly separating the actions you are taking now from the actions you want and memories of the past. While you are daydreaming of accomplishing a goal, your brain has a hard time discerning whether your remembering a past accomplishment or it’s something you’re planning to do, INC. Magazine reports.

Because your brain recognizes your visualizations as something desirable, it releases dopamine which not only motivates you, but it activates a portion of your brain that learns from repetition.

This brain activity is why it is so important to visualize where you want to go and who you want to be. It’s almost like your training your brain to become successful, much like you train your body to increase your stamina for a marathon race. Repetition is the key in training anything, including your mind.

Keep visualizing yourself as a successful individual with a growing business, nice clothes, cars and a house and before you know it you could actually be living out those dreams.

If you’re having trouble visualizing where you want to be, it is advised that you should get some visual cues. Andy Albright, the President and CEO of National Agents Alliance, advises that you pick up the Robb Report, a luxury magazine filled with all the finer things in life. This is a great aid in visualizing what the “good life” can be like. Tear the pages out, cut pictures out, or just keep a stack of visual cues nearby to constantly remind you what you want your life to be like. Just day dreaming and visualizing could subconsciously drive you all the way to realizing those dreams and reaching success.

Are you doing your job as a life insurance agent? I don’t mean making dials or selling policies, part of your job is also to educate your clients on the different products available for their retirement needs.

But, unfortunately it seems that this has slipped by the wayside as nearly 9 in 10 consumers worldwide have little or no awareness of the retirement products offered by life insurance companies, new research reveals.

According to Accenture, 62 percent of consumers have little awareness of retirement products offered by life insurance companies, while 24 percent are not aware at all and 24 percent stated that they have a “good awareness.”

Those who reported to have little to no awareness, 45 percent said it is because they have never received “simple information on retirement from any life insurer.”

This is a big deal because according to the study, 82 percent of consumers are concerned about their post-retirement finances. Furthermore, 71 percent of consumers believe that government planning will not allow them to continue their current state of living following retirement.

In fact, 29 percent reported that they plan to invest in life insurance to address their retirement needs.

It’s important that all of National Agents Alliance team members take the time to educate your clients about annuities and other retirement products that are available to them. They are seeking options, so make sure you offer them the information in order to make an informed decision. Going above and beyond can mean repeat business and prompt them to seek your services when they are ready to make retirement plans.

As an insurance agent you’re on the road a lot. From driving to flying, even taking the train, the long hours on the road can take a toll on anyone.

Whether you’re traveling to National Agents Alliance’s Leadership Convention or on the road to meet with clients and attend meetings, it’s easy to get caught up in the drag of traveling. But, there is an upside to frequent travel, as you can fit in more “me-time” while on the road.

CBS News reveals the top four ways you can make business travel less grueling:

Bring a good book: At NAA we advise all of our agents to read, and what’s a better time than when you’re sitting on a plane and the flight attendants ask you to turn off all electronic devices? That time period is when you could get in at least 30 minutes of reading time. Also, when you’re sitting at the airport or waiting for a taxi are also good opportunities to read a couple pages.

Call your friends: Haven’t had time to catch up with your old college buddy or call your grandmother, whose birthday was last month—here’s your chance! When you’re sitting at a hotel with nothing better to do, grab the phone and start making those calls you’ve been meaning to make.

Exercise: Most hotels have a gym and a pool that you can take advantage of by swimming laps to get your exercise in. You can also go for a brisk walk and check out the scenery of the city you are visiting.

Watch that TV show you’ve been meaning to: If you never have time to watch television and are up late at night because of jet lag or have an hour between meetings, take that time to sit down, relax and watch TV.

You are not looking for a business to tie up all your assets and equity, you are looking for a business to generate more cash flow for your household. By choosing the National Agents Alliance business model, you can get started for almost nothing, and you can easily find other agents who can afford to join your business. You don’t want to have to work for years to earn a return on your investment.

2. The business must be easy to operate and maintain.

Let’s face it, nobody wants to spend their weekends stocking shelves, figuring out where to get leads, or searching for the best suppliers. NAA has prepared a turn-key system for its agents. Plug into that system and each step that you complete increases your confidence and leads you closer to your goals. NAA offers all the necessary training, leads are generated for the agents, the carriers are ready to take your applications, all you have to do is set some appointments and everything else is in place for you. You didn’t go into business to spend time creating the system, so by choosing National Agents Alliance you have a business where the groundwork has been laid for your success.

3. Look for a business where you can make a quick return on your investment.

How many hamburgers do you have to sell to recoup the cost of that restaurant? Most franchises take about 5 years of hard work before the owner sees their first profit. At National Agents Alliance, Andy Albright has created a model where a new agent can make a profit from their very first day in the business.

If you are serious about upgrading your lifestyle and creating more time for you to spend with your family, pick up a copy of Andy Albright’s Millionaire Maker Manual, and learn how thousands of agents run a business that has changed their lives. They made a small investment in themselves, plugged into the ready system, started earning a profit from the very first day, and today they enjoy a lifestyle that most only dream of.

Ask anyone who is going through a difficult time in their marriage, or with a child, or even butting heads with a co-worker and they will tell you that difficulties in relationships can negatively impact every area of our life. Because relationships are so important to success at National Agents Alliance, this is doubly true for our agents.

In the creation story, the first gift bestowed on the very first person was the gift of a companion. Humans are designed to live together, and the vast majority of our happiness in life (or lack thereof) comes from our ability to have good relationships. This is obvious in your NAA business.

Most of us have learned somewhere along the way that having good relationships is not easy and takes the effort of both parties for success. Perhaps you’re in a relationship right now with a spouse or other important person and that relationship is no longer what it used to be. Maybe there is tension from work, or maybe you’ve just lost interest and drifted apart. Whatever is affecting the relationship, it’s important to use a few basic skills to repair it. All the success in the world can be diminished in value if you have no one to share it with.

Whether the relationship is at work or personal, there are three basic tools that can make things work better. The three tools are time, effort, and imagination. Sadly, the first tool is so simple it is often overlooked. Time is as simple as sitting at the table together eating a meal instead of grabbing a meal on the go, or in the case of a key relationship, it can be the commitment to spend a week’s vacation together or to sit and read to a child every night for fifteen minutes.

One single, working mom shared the story of how she always gets up 30 minutes early and fixes a big breakfast for her three boys. Their teenage lives are busy and full of sports and activities, but she made the commitment to spend time with them before the distractions of the day, and it has kept her family close. While these things may not be easy, they pay huge dividends, and the good things in life generally require some effort on our part. She clearly feels that this extra effort is a key to her children’s well-being.

Imagination is the ability to see the relationship the way it could be. Be creative and plan a special date with your spouse and then make it happen. Celebrate a holiday or a birthday in a unique way. Find a funny card to send for no reason at all or bring a coworker a piece of homemade dessert or an interesting newspaper article. Just use a little imagination and have some fun with it.

Top producers at National Agents Alliance learn quickly that a key factor for success in life is having good relationships with family, team members and clients. We will never do well in sales or recruiting if we can’t conquer the basics of healthy relationships, and life’s successes seem even sweeter when you have someone to share them with.

One of the many benefits of being a life insurance agent with National Agents Alliance is that we encourage our agents to get their spouse on board and work together in your new business venture. But sometimes when work and personal life are combined, it creates a melting-pot effect that could ruin your marriage. Knowing how to work and live together is key to keeping your relationship intact.

Forbes has revealed some tips on how to keep your “happy” marriage intact while working together:

Define your workspace: If possible, pick two separate areas away from your partner and designate it as your “official work space.” Being in a separate space will help avoid distractions from your spouse, which can be as simple as their phone ringing throughout the day. If you don’t have a space large enough to accommodate both of you, establishing office hours may provide a fix.

Create office hours: Create your “office hours,” so that you can focus on work and then have time for each other after your work is done. This helps to prevent an overlap of work and your personal life.

Communication: It’s imperative that you learn how to communicate with each other without getting defensive with one another. In fact, it’s not a completely absurd idea to book an appointment with your spouse to talk about business-related concerns, this way you can completely focus your attention to the task at hand.

Dealing with distractions: This might be the biggest hurdle for most people working from home and with their spouse. “We’ve gotten into the habit of being distracted,” says Diane Gottsman, owner of The Protocol School of Texas, a company specializing in etiquette training for corporations, universities and individuals. “We now have to get into the habit of focusing on getting what we need to get done, taking our breaks, and at a certain point shutting down and being present with our spouse and with our friends.”

Are you looking and feeling like a million bucks? Did that new suit jump your self-esteem into over-drive, thus kicking up your performance and driving your National Agents Alliance business to the next level? According to new research, there may be a link between how you dress and how well you work.

The study, conducted by professors at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, shows that “when research subjects wore a scientist’s or medical doctor’s white coat, they performed better on a test known as the ‘Stroop test,’ which asks participants to say the color of a word being shown on a flash card, rather than the word itself. The group who donned white jackets identified as lab coats performed better on conflicting flash cards, such as when the word ‘blue’ is spelled in red letters. Those wearing the lab coats, which people typically associate with care and attentiveness, made about half as many errors as their peers,” the Washington Post reports.

But interestingly enough, when the subjects wore similar white coats and were told that they were artists’ coats, they did not perform above average. As a result, scientists believe that their finding shows that it’s not just the experience of wearing the clothes, but the symbolic meaning they hold for people.

So, what does this study apply to the workplace? Like all studies, it’s hard to know how this research translates to the actual workplace. But it does point out that leaders should think through their company’s dress code or workplace fashion norms, not just how your employee’s dress is perceived by outsiders. “It reminds people that clothes aren’t just a device of perception, but a tool that can really affect how you perceive yourself,” researcher Adam Galinsky says.

Clothes may not make the man, the saying goes. But as the authors write, “they do hold a strange power over their wearers.”

Being with National Agents Alliance, or even just in sales in general, means that you travel—a lot! Whether you’re traveling across the U.S. or an hour down the road, there’s one thing that you can count on—you’ll spend money. After a few trips, you begin to see how much it really costs to travel for work, but there are ways to do business on the road and save money.

Hotels: You can save on your hotel rooms if you book in advance as much as possible. Using discount travel sites like Expedia.com or Travelocity.com, you can often find cheaper rates per night. In addition if you have AAA, they offer discounts at affiliated hotels—just show your card at check-in or during booking.

Airfares: Airlines in the U.S. earned some $6 billion in ancillary fees in 2010, charging for everything from a first checked bag to trail mix to pillows. Avoid extra baggage charges by packing light so that your luggage can be a carry on—saving you about $25 (depending on the carrier). You can also take advantage of discount travel sites like CheapTickets.com or Kayak.com to compare prices and find the best deal.

Rental Cars: While you won’t save much in renting vehicles, Enterprise has introduced a new customer service model to help set them apart. If one of their brands doesn’t have a car in the category you selected, or if you’re dissatisfied with the selection, employees are empowered to find options elsewhere in their fleet, the industry’s largest, or to offer a more expensive vehicle at the same price. That won’t help your bottom line–but if you’re going to pay $70 a day for a car, it might as well be a Lincoln, Entrepreneur Magazine reports.

It may also be a good idea to look into a rewards card, which gives you points when you spend, to use towards travel—like hotels and airfare. Some cards even allow you to use those points and turn them into cash, saving yourself money in the end.

No matter what you do, you will spend money while traveling. But, saving a few dollars here and there will add up and you’ll begin to see more money in your pocket.

Many people often forget that an effective salesperson also understands that it is largely based on psychology. How you ask questions and speak to clients; the phrases you use in your email, blogs, social media content and Web content all has a lot to do with how effective your selling technique is, and sales are a very important part of your activity with National Agents Alliance!

LifeHealthPro.com’s “The psychology of selling: Using positive phrases”revealed some tips in how to infuse some psychology into your sales efforts in order to see more signatures on the dotted line:

People are emotionally driven: Clients decide to purchase your services based on a need, feeling or emotion — not necessarily a logical thought. This is why the content you write must express intangible benefits to the reader to persuade them to buy from you. As you write your content, ask yourself what emotions you are hoping to stir up in your reader in order to write the most effective sales copy.

Use positive and recognizable phrases: To let you in on a little trick, you can turn to social media to access positive phrases that entice your clients to purchase your services. Observe firsthand the type of language and phrases that they use when discussing your industry. Then use these exact phrases in your content to perfectly identify with your clients. This is a subconscious way of establishing a bond with your clients to attract them to choose you over your competition.

Always provide value: Value does not have to encompass a price. However, the content you provide to your clients should always be valuable to attract them to the credibility of your business. Whether this is offering a free downloadable report, online videos or compelling content, your clients must see value in order to even consider purchasing your services. And once you offer value to gain clients, these same clients are highly likely to pass along this valuable information to their own friends and family to do your marketing work for you.

When you woke up this morning were you on the right side or the wrong side of the bed? By choosing what side you woke up on as soon as your start your day, you will determine what thoughts and actions will proceed with the rest of your day.

According to the author of “Practice Power: 12 Steps to Take Your Business to the Next Level,” Joe Lukacs, believed that the most important “success habit” is to have a “morning success ritual.” This is where you start your day with a positive tone, which ultimately creates a positive day.

Lukacs reveals that a powerful morning success ritual includes:

Positive visualization

Morning power questions

Review of business plan

Positive mental diet

Creating your daily game plan

If you start your day by tackling your inbox and to-do list, without arranging your thoughts and outlook, you will see less activity and results. Lukacs believes that if you make the morning success ritual apart of your morning routine you will be able to power through your day and achieve more results.

National Agents Alliance wants to know if you have any “success rituals” or “morning success rituals,” comment below and tell us about them!